One of the blogs on my blogroll is Haley’s Halo. Haley is a Christian woman in search of a suitable Christian man to marry. From reading her blog, I gather that suitable means a virgin who knows how to put the moves on women, and is looking to marry but not beta.
A totally unrelated picture.
Wait. I know what you are thinking. That should be really easy, right? Why hasn’t she found a hundred guys like this? But it turns out that not only do alpha men not want to marry and women outnumber men in most churches, but single alpha men are extremely uncommon in churches. As ThinkingMan puts it in the comments to one of Haley’s posts:
With the unspoken paradigm that ‘girliness is next to Godliness’ presented to men in far too many churches, B’s odds of landing a church alpha are low if she attends one of those churches.
Now that he mentions this, it does match what I have seen in my few visits to church over the last few years. Before my father-in-law found his current church, he took us to the church he was test driving when we visited them a few years back. I have to say I would have enjoyed the services much more if the pastor hadn’t cried quite so much while delivering the sermon, especially since the topics he was covering really weren’t emotional at all. It also brings to mind the wedding my wife and I attended about 10 years ago between two devout evangelicals. I had seen crying at weddings before that, but never by the groom, and typically not continued sobbing to the extent that it prevented saying the actual wedding vows. I don’t have to tell you what my wife said after seeing that bizarre display.
So maybe there is something to this. I have to say I would be much more likely to attend a church if I could find one which wasn’t thoroughly feminized. Which brings us back to Haley’s challenge. How to find an Alpha when as a woman seeking a Christian husband she is at a disadvantage to begin with?
My thought was maybe she could find one of the less nauseating beta guys and alpha him up a bit:
What about “rolling your own” alpha? Seems that women love the idea of taking an alpha on as a fixer upper, trying to mix in some beta qualities. Wouldn’t it work better to find one of the less nauseating beta guys at church and date him while trying to up his alpha qualities? One thing about betas, they listen to their girlfriends.
If he doesn’t progress as expected you could always throw him back and start over. After all, if he stayed in nauseating beta mode there would be no threat to the girl’s chastity.
This idea was shot down immediately and unanimously. While I still think the basic premise is sound, I can understand why it would have limited practical appeal. The primary reason given in the responses to my suggestion was that once the beta was alphad up a bit, he would instantly transform into a pickup artist trolling for other women. I don’t think that is the real issue. For starters, you don’t want to make him that alpha. Also, I think they are grossly underestimating the true nature of betas. Betas generally have oneitis quite bad. This is the nature of the condition, and can either be noble or a farce depending on how this is expressed. So a slightly alpha’d up beta would be much less likely to leave or cheat than a beta’d down alpha. The only other option would be to go with a totally unmodified beta.
However, as I said I think they are right that this isn’t really feasible. I think the primary reason is that the whole “women love a project” myth is exactly that. In reality it is just a rationalization of the preference for alpha bad boys many women follow.
Note: I hope Haley doesn’t mind my poking a bit of fun at the significant challenge she of course is well aware she faces. I admire her tenacity and feel that it is only right that she not settle when looking for the love of her life.
