Know Thy Man

Knowledge is power, as they say.

In the dating game, women choose, men display. That is how it has always been. That is how it will always be.
It is Nature's way.

A man is on a parade his whole life. From time to time, a woman chooses him. If she makes the right choice and is the right kind of woman, he will get off the parade and will happily stay off.

If she chooses wrong, or is the wrong kind of woman to begin with, he will get violently tossed back into the parade at some point in the future, usually stripped of his dignity, assets and children, in what is known as divorce-rape hell.
Or he may be trapped indoors but looking longingly at the parade outside because he is in a lonely, private hell.
Men are on a constant parade to as many women as possible (usually sexually), in the hope that one of them chooses him (read: will care enough about him to be his loyal, faithful lifelong mate).

Why do women choose, and not men?

Because a woman's eggs are expensive. She has a finite number bestowed on her at birth. And she loses them at a rate of one (occasionally two) a month beginning at puberty until she runs out altogether.
Men are continually renewing their supplies. In reproductive terms, their merchandise is 'cheaper' compared to a woman's.
It is simple biology. And economics.

A woman is therefore programmed to seek the highest bidder (whatever this may mean to her) for her eggs. Cue hypergamy.
She needs to be choosy.
Moreover, she gets even more choosy as she gets older.

Why?
Some men scoff at this apparently illogical phenomenon in ageing women.
This is another example of what I will call 'Masculine eye syndrome' from now on.

To a man's logical mind, an ageing woman should take what she can get, because her overall package is less and less appealing to a man. Because men are attracted to youth and beauty.
Makes sense.

But, from the female point of view, she gets choosier because her eggs are getting more expensive. There are fewer left. They are becoming rare. She needs an even higher bidder for them than ever before.
To men, this is a losing strategy.

Yes, and no.

To a marriage-minded woman in this situation, viewing herself as 'expensive' in a mindless fashion with no insight into the intricasies of the market in which she finds herself is indeed a losing strategy. Failure to understand her true value in the Sexual Market Place (SMP) combined with an inflated sense of entitlement will ensure she never succeeds in her Nature-driven goals.

To a marriage-minded woman who correctly assesses the SMP and adjusts her thinking and therefore actions to best place her in a position to allow her enough suitors to choose from, this could be the best time-period in her entire reproductive life.

Because there comes a time in a women's life when she achieves a state of equilibrium. This coincides with a time when she experiences little or no cognitive dissonance. Her youth and beauty are still intact. She feels 'ready' to take her romantic life seriously. Her maturity suddenly shines through. Her conscious mind finally catches up with her subconscious mind in her pursuit of feminine goals. There are no more inner conflicts left. Her thoughts are aligned with her actions. Her ducks are all lined up. Everything makes sense. This woman, if already feminine becomes 'super-feminine'. If not already feminine, she starts to show signs of it.

In the old days, this moment in a woman's life occurred much earlier in her life.
Nowadays, it happens a lot later.
This is one of the unintended consequences of feminism.

This woman will not be atrractive to the PUA types. Because she lacks the allure of the very young. As the french say, tant mieux! (just as well!), because in fact, this woman, at this time in her life is a very poor match for the PUA.
In fact, being with a PUA is against her best interests, and will put her right back into a state of cognitive dissonance.

For a certain kind of marriage-minded man, this is the perfect woman. For she exudes a certain kind of feminine confidence which attracts only the marriage-minded man. It is a kind of social pheromone. This confidence is not to be confused with the 'strong and independent' feminist balderdash.

Nature aids and abets this woman in her quest to do Nature's bidding.

Note: By Nature's bidding, I am not referring only to copulation of course. I mean the whole package. Nature intended copulation as a way to beget the next generation, sure.
The mission to get this process started was clearly assigned to males. The mandate appeared to be: impregnate as many women as possible in order to guarantee a steady stream of offspring.

But Nature also intended the survival of said next generation. Nature accorded this task to women. Not just by way of endowing her with nurturing qualities, but also by way of giving her strategies to keep the seemingly wayward man focussed on her and not the entire female population. This is why relationships are a woman's domain, in general.

Nature's way to aid and abet women is a double whammy approach.

1. Keep the men simple, straightforward, uncomplicated. This makes it easier for a woman to read a man than the other way round.
2. In addition, just in case 1. is not enough, Nature endows a woman with a special 'female intuition' to allow her to sniff out a man's true intentions (read: character).

A man is usually deeply honest with a woman at some point or other during their encounter. In his actions, his words, his behaviour, his thinking. There is always a clue. Of course, women do the same to men too, but most effectively after he has, first. It only works if she follows his lead.

A woman knows a man she is 'studying'. She may lie to herself following her study, but she knows. Because she has to know. Because Nature gave her that job.

But she has to be ready for the job, otherwise she will do it all wrong.

Disrespect? Or a covert display of submissiveness?

Men and women.
They really do live on different planets, don't they?

If it weren't for the often tragic misunderstandings that can result from this, it would be funny.

Poor old Michelle Obama got into big trouble recently.
She offended the Manosphere crowd.
I don't know if she knows or cares though.

Now, I know that if someone feels a certain emotion, be it positive or negative, it's no good telling them otherwise. They feel what they feel.

Sexual harrassment laws use this principle, for example.
If a person feels sexually harrassed, they are.

So I am not going to tell men to not feel offended by Michelle Obama.
To do so would be to get their back up and alienate them.
I don't want that.

But, I can see something they cannot.
And I know that other women can see what I see. I have proof of this on some Manosphere blogs.
I am sure if men see what I am seeing they would rethink their position.

The situation I am referring to is this video of an interview with both the Obamas by Barbara Walters (stolen from Dalrock).

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/12/23/barack_has_no_pet_peeves_of_first_lady_michelle_my_list_is_too_long.html

In this clip, she asks Mr Obama what his biggest peeve about his wife is.
He replies: "I don't have one".
In answer to the same question, Michelle Obama replies:
"My list is too long".

This last statement caused all kinds of furore in the Manosphere.
Men from all over the globe felt 'disrespected' on behalf of Barack Obama. Many accused him of being a 'beta'.

I get it.
Michelle Obama is married to the most powerful man on Earth.
And yet, she is not happy with him.

Wrong.

One could only come to the above conclusion if one sees and hears the interview with masculine eyes and ears.

A little background check on Michelle Obama also gave me further insight into her comment.

Understand this.
(And I tried to make this point as a commenter on some Manosphere sites, but it fell on deaf ears.)

Michelle Obama is a woman best placed to respect a man.
She grew up in a home with both parents. That means she had her father around, growing up.
She asked her 6 ft 6 brother to vet Barack before she married him.
She is unlikely to have man-hating issues. She had a loving father and brother that she got on very well with in her early years.

Understand that this woman's early upbringing is rare in today's world.
Having said that, many women develop good inter-relational skills with men even in the absence of this kind of environment, but with it, a woman is well ahead of the game.

So it should not surprise anyone that this woman got to be the wife of the President of the United States of America. She was already onto a winning streak just from having the kind of home she had as a child.

Back to the interview itself, only a woman can see that Michelle's statement is the female equivalent of chimpanzee-type chest-beating.

Michelle Obama is talking to other women in this interview.
And she is bragging.

And what's more, Barack knows that.

What Michelle O is doing is saying to other women:
'My husband is such hard work..he is such a pain in the ****, but I still love him'.

That last part is important. Look how she smiles when she says "my list is too long".
Look how Barack laughs at the same time.

Michelle Obama knows women. Because she is a woman.

The best way for a woman to boast about her alpha male (if she really really loves him) to other women is to give the impression that he is 'hard work', a jerk (translation into manspeak: alpha) but despite that she still loves him! She is prepared to take his 'crap' because he is special.

In other words, she submits to his dominance of her. And she delights in it.

Because he is special. Full stop.

Mrs. Obama really would have 'disrespected' her husband if she had given the same answer as he had. If she had said something about how "nice" he was. Women all over the world would have been secretly unimpressed. Because as you all know, women don't really want plain old 'nice', at least not all the time.
Women want a mxiture of alpha and beta, in the right sequence.


Michelle Obama is boasting to other women that she got the prize bull and kept him.
She is telling us that she was never a reluctant bride.

That is the ultimate compliment to a man.
Barack was laughing for a reason.
He gets it.
What's more, he also tells us that he got the 'nice girl' who loves him, so he has no complaints.
No need to be angry on his behalf.

Men and women really are different in what they want in a relationship, how they see the world and how they think.
This couple is doing it right.
Long may their marriage last.

The reluctant bride revisited

Sometimes you get an unexpected helping hand from an unexpected source.

Two of my last three posts have touched on the subject of The Reluctant bride, even though this was not meant to be the main focus of the posts.

And then I found this on Dalrock:

'The one that got away'

where a Katy Perry video showing an elderly married woman pining away for her ex-lover is shown and analysed.

This is what Dalrock advises:
This should serve as a warning to men considering marriage; check very carefully for this sort of vibe. Women often feel entitled to nurse this sort of “poor me” feeling, regardless of how good a husband you are. This is also why you need to take your potential wife’s past sexual history very seriously.

It is precisely because I am privy to female nature that I agree with Dalrock's advice to men.
But I spot a potential fatal flaw.

This is also why you need to take your potential wife’s past sexual history very seriously.

This refers to the truism that if a woman has had many sexual partners, she may be less likely to bond to any one man.
On the whole, I cosign this. But I am well aware that there are two important caveats here:

1. There are always exceptions which prove the rule.

2. Very importantly, sometimes the individual circumstances in which a woman engages in sexual activity are crucial to decipher her motives.

Some men might respond to No 2 that whatever the circumstances, the risk of potential cuckoldry remains high, as history can always repeat itself. I cannot argue with that.

What caught my attention with Dalrock's last sentence was the implication of the reverse situation.
That if the woman is a virgin, you are relatively safe.

He does not actually conclude this, but I think it is a possible assumption.

The assumption that a woman needs sex to bond with a man.

Like Dalrock's wife, I too abhor the situation where a reluctant bride forges on into marriage/longterm relationship only to destroy that relationship because she cannot get another man out of her mind.
Like Dalrock's wife, I too have seen this play out and it is not pretty to watch.

In some of the cases of this nature that I know of, the woman was a virgin at the time of marriage.

Of course it is true that the hormone oxytocin which surges into the bloodstream post copulation promotes bonding. It is indeed the same hormone which promotes attachment of mother to baby too.

But...

A woman does not have to have sex in order to bond to a man.

There is a reason this hormone is also called the 'cuddle hormone'.
Sometimes, that's all it takes. A cuddle. A kiss. A handhold. A look.

If you are having trouble believing it, consider this.
An adoptive mother can bond incredibly well with her adoptive child. She never bore that child in her own womb. And yet she can bond to that child better than the child's own biological mother.

In the old days, women were able to properly bond to their prospective husbands prior to marriage. Sex was not required to make this process happen.

I know it's only a film, but it illustrates my point.
In my post on Pearl Harbour, I state that Evelyn would most likely have gone on to become Danny's reluctant bride had he not died in the war. And yet Danny is the one she had slept with. She had never slept with Rafe, her true love.

A woman truly bonds with only an incredibly small number of men in her lifetime. Usually, there is one at the top of the list.
She does not need to have slept with him for him to get there, way up above all the rest.

Gentlemen, make sure you are at Top Spot with your woman before jumping into longterm plans with her. (I know you already do!)
Even if she is a virgin.
Especially if she is a virgin.

Unless you are happy with No 2 spot.
Which is not a fun place to be.
The bitter men from the Manosphere already know that.

It's hard to be a woman

Tammy Wynette's famous song 'Stand by your man' hits it on the head.
Sometimes, it really is hard to be a woman.

I remember once, I was in an algebra class at school. I must have been around fifteen years old.
It was an all-girl school.
The teacher was a middle-aged man. A father-figure type.

One of my classmates was obviously having a bad day. I forget what her problem was, but I am willing to bet it was related to the time of month.

The class was dead quiet until she started speaking. We had a test coming up and we were trying to work hard for it.
The girl looked up at the teacher and said, "Oh sir, how I wish I was a man!"

The teacher regarded her for a moment.
Then he turned to all of us and said, "Yes sure, it's hard to be a woman. But you do not want to be a man. You are blessed in being women. Embrace it."

Now, I remember feeling stunned that a man was talking to us like this. Years later, I realised how nice and important for our feminine development that a man was telling us to enjoy womanhood.

But as we were to discover in later life, it would turn out to be hard to enjoy womanhood.
Feminism saw to that.

Women have their biological role to play in life, with all its complexities. Navigating that alone is hard enough.

In addition, many women have taken on the roll of the man too. By way of brutally exhausting careers.
Which she may not be fully equipped to perform. Think women in the Armed Forces and their physical capabilities relative to men.

All these factors collude to disrupt a woman's journey through life.

Another unintended consequence of feminism is the delay in the maturation process of the modern woman.
In previous generations, women matured much faster than men. Nature was keen to make sure that by the time she had children, she would be well equipped to care for them.
Not so anymore.
By the time a man matures nowadays, his female counterpart is still lost at sea.

But whilst a man has all the time in the world to mature, women don't.
Because there is one more Nemesis to tackle: Mother Time...

And then she seeks compassion.
But would a man show compassion?

Generally not.
At least not in the way a woman wants it.

But here is the good news.

The solution for a woman who is finding it hard to be a woman is simply to use male and female nature to her advantage.

It is a mistake to seek compassion (read: pity) from a man.
Men don't do pity.
One look at the Manosphere and that becomes clear very quickly.
It would appear on the surface that men are harsh critics. Very harsh critics.
But actually, they simply are seeing the world through masculine eyes. Naturally.
Men judge everyone including women by masculine (i.e. their own) standards.

He won't stand another man crying and feeling sorry for himself. He might soften if a woman he is attached to (mother, sister, wife, longterm girlfriend) appeals to his soft centre.

Otherwise, it is 'get up and get on with it'. End of story.

Take advantage. Let us use the harsh criticisms of the Manosphere as the first step in our Recovery Programme.
In the end, they are doing us a favour.
Even if they think otherwise.

Ladies, beware of herd mentality

I was drawn to Olive's blog primarily because of her concerted effort to distance herself from negative influences which prevent her from achieving her goals in life. I am a big fan of that.

In her recent series of posts "The quest for supportive friends" she describes in vivid detail why a certain friend or other was a bad influence on her, particularly in the dating environment.

All these friends (so far) have been other women.

One thing I have learned from the godfathers of the Manosphere is the concept of Women and their herd mentality.
I had never heard of this before.

I mean, I knew vaguely of the importance of 'the herd'. In the field of immunisation, for example, the principle of herd immunity is exploited to good effect.

But with educated eyes, I soon discovered evidence of 'the herd' all around me.

Women go around in packs much more than men. In a social setting, several women will leave for the bathroom together even if one or several of them do not need to go. Men will go one at a time.

Women tend to have many friends. Most men are solitary creatures.

'The herd' serves a useful biological purpose for women. In hunter-gatherer times, women stayed together for support (mutually free babysitting needs got fulfilled, for example), communication (if all the men were out hunting who would listen to her talk all day but the other women in the community?) and emotional connectivity (ditto). It was a great opportunity also for older women to pass on advice and tips to younger women (sadly today a lost art). The system worked very well.

In modern times, we have kept up this tradition of sorts and for the most part, it works.
What woman hasn't revelled in the support and building up that only her friends can provide in the aftermath of a catastrophic event in her life (read: aka boyfriend trouble)?

I am all for 'the herd'.

Except for two things.

Firstly, as Olive explains, the herd can lead a woman so far off the beaten track she is practically out of the woods altogether.

Some women are more savvy than others. Years of feminism has resulted in women competing with each other for men and not the other way round as in previous generations. Some women play dirty. They deliberately sabotage the efforts of their sisters in the dating game.

Beware who is in your herd. Distance yourself from those who are not helping your cause. Any source of conflict with your best interests will result in a state of cognitive dissonance within you. Eliminate internal conflict.

 Secondly, herd mentality in women can be used against them on a much wider scale than a few bitchy friends.

Think feminism.

The effects of feminism have been much worse on women than on men.
This is because women pass on 'messages' to each other much more effectively than men, precisely because they are good communicators. To use cell biology analogy, men could be described as distinct cells whilst women could be seen more as the 'gap junctions' or cell membranes that make cells 'stick together' and communicate effectively with one another.

As women go, so goes society.
Because feminism was so successful at getting into the mindset of women, the consequences became disproportionately widespread.
This is why feminism is not just a western disease. Even remote parts of the world are subject to its effects as long as its women are reachable by some means or other.
Paradoxically, any effective measure to reverse the effects of feminism would essentially have to rely on this same herd mentality.

Think Pick Up Artistry (PUA).

The seedier aspect of PUA exploits this potential 'flaw' in women. In both ways.
This is why concepts such as 'negging' particularly when executed in the presence of other women works so well. The woman needs to feel part of the herd - if a trait of hers which deviates from the herd's modus operandi is reproached, in front of the herd, she feels a deep sense of isolation. She does not want to be isolated, so she conforms.
A good example: 'all your friends are sleeping with guys on the first date - why won't you? What's wrong with you?'
In the other way herd mentality can be exploited, a skilled PUA understands the need to actually isolate a woman from the herd: her support mechanism needs to be eliminated if she is to be effectively manipulated.

The herd can be a useful and marvellous tool for women.
Ladies, use it to your advantage.
Beware of the risks therof.

Film Review: Pearl Harbour

I seem to be stuck. On war films. Specifically Far East war films. A few days ago, I posted a review on the film Empire of the sun highlighting the specific lessons I had picked up from it.
It seems I cannot get myself out of the Far East.
This time, I shall discuss a lesson from Pearl Harbour.

Two young american men, Rafe and Danny are best friends since their boyhood. They both enrol in the Armed Forces when they get older and are transferred to Pearl Harbour. Rafe (who is undoubtedly the alpha of the two, perhaps because he is older (?)) meets a Navy nurse, Evelyn who he falls in love with. Before the two can establish their budding romance, Rafe volunteers to join the war effort in England. Whilst there, his plane gets shot down by the enemy and he plunges into the cold waters of the English channel and is presumed dead.
Danny has to break the bad news to Evelyn. She is clearly devastated. Many months pass and Danny begins to show signs of falling for her. Evelyn resists his efforts for a long time. Then one day, Danny takes her for a ride in his plane - an action which could have got him kicked out of the Air Force. On their return to the Airfield base, Danny narrowly misses being spotted. He and Evelyn have to hide in the terminal building. One thing leads to another and they become intimate for the first time.

Evelyn is still reluctant with Danny. He is clearly smitten with her and wants a relationship with her, but Evelyn is not really attracted to him. She tries to resist him but in the end he seems to be making headway with her.
Unfortunately for her, she soon discovers she is pregnant by Danny.
This, on the same day that Rafe shows up in town. Turns out he didn't die afterall. He was rescued by a french fisherman and being stuck in Occupied France, so he could not get word out that he was indeed alive.

Evelyn is happy to see him. But she is now torn between her true love, Rafe, and the father of her unborn child, Danny.
The two men unsurprisingly become enemies. But not for long. The events surrounding them collude to repair their relationship, and in the end, Rafe relinquishes Evelyn to Danny, in compliance with her wishes.
The two later volunteer on what turns out to be a suicide mission to Tokyo and Japanese-occupied China.  Danny loses his life, but not before Rafe reveals to him news of his impending fatherhood.

Rafe returns to Pearl Harbour with Danny's coffin, and is greeted by a heavily pregnant Evelyn yet again devastated by loss.

The film ends with a family scene of Rafe and Evelyn and  'little Danny'.



I was thinking the other day about 'honour'. Not the negative kind, like where some traditional families kill their daughter for refusing to marry a man of her father's choice and call it an 'honour' killing.

I am talking here about the distinctive masculine concept.

Honour is a deeply masculine virtue. At least, defending honour is.

It is why men can die for their country without a moment's hesitation. It is why a boxer will keep going until he is almost comatose, rather than quit.

Speaking of which, take a look at this scene from Pearl Harbour.

Two men are in a boxing match (starting at 03:39). The smaller guy looks like he may need a doctor soon. His friend and supporter says to him at 04:59: "He slept with your Mamma, remember? Be a son of a bitch!"
The smaller guy wins the match.

'Honour' to a woman is about protecting her own dignity, in general.
I don't know any woman who sees it as her duty to protect another's honour. If those same words that were directed at the boxer were directed to a woman, the only way it would affect her would be how those words reflected on her.

A good example, however of how this sense of honour can extend to 'other' rather than 'self', is Evelyn's decision to stick with Danny when she discovers she is pregnant by him, even though it is really Rafe she loves. In this case, she is being selfless. She does the 'honourable' thing, not for Danny per se, but for her unborn child. She never truly loved Danny. She was always going to be a reluctant bride for Danny. Which makes her decision all the more heroic.

The young guy in the boxing ring won because he was protecting his mother's honour. His friend knew he would react that way. That's why he said what he said.

Defending (a woman's) honour makes a man vulnerable.
To women, it should be a beautiful thing.

(Incidentally, although not the focus of this post, the young boxer arrives at Nurse Evelyn's hospital to have his cuts sewn up (05:35). She asks him how he acquired his wounds.
There follows a little lecture on what 'Respect' means to a man.
Her comment 'Well let's hope you never have to' demonstrates how much she misses the point of what he is trying to say to her. Like so many women do, including me).

Out with the old, in with the new

Goodbye 2011.

You were a wonderful year, full of light, laughter, joy and new experiences.
You were also a painful year, full of despair, anguish and tears.

Welcome 2012.

With hopeful hearts we look forward to meeting you.
Like little children we cannot wait to see your box of tricks.