I have this friend. Let’s call him Clark. Clean cut, all American guy. Southern Baptist, very religious – but not in the asshole way that Southern Baptists are prone to be. The kind of guy who’s followed all of the “wisdom” his elders have given him. He goes to church regularly. He worked hard in school. He was frugal and didn’t party. He got his degree, and took a crappy job in middle-of-nowhere southern USA (I’m talking seriously rural) for a bit because it was the only job he could get. He managed to snag a state job right before his girlfriend finished her undergraduate degree. It was a big pay raise (which is sad, because the pay was still about 30% less than my first software engineering job), and it was enough that they could feel much more comfortable in their imminent wedding. Also, it was a move back home to where we grew up, which is a relatively large city for the south, so no more BFE.
They got married, and she commuted about two hours to finish grad school. For a couple of years, while she was finishing, they were really happy. They’re both very religious. They’ve got a bit of the “the man rules the house” religious thing going on. She’s a good southern girl. He’s not a pushover, so he’s not just playing doormat like so many AMCs. He’s firm in his beliefs, firm in his morals, firm in his friendships. After graduation, she moved to be with him (instead of the other way). Of course, it helped that his new (or old, depending on how you look at it) location was a good place for her to be, career wise, anyway.
But all is not well in paradise. He’s still at the state job. Now she’s a minor partner in a brand new – and very successful – private enterprise. Her starting salary was significantly higher than his then current salary. Now, a few years later, she makes more than twice his salary. Alas, this is not the only beta issue in their relationship. Clark isn’t too bad, but he’s got a few very beta behaviors that raise their head every now and then. He covers his eyes at nudity in TV and movies, and she tells him when it’s OK to open them. He puts on a good show of being honestly unaware that she’s significantly overweight. Not the “she’s overweight but I don’t mind” attitude, mind you. I very delicately mentioned the issue once, when she completely wasn’t around, in one of those “she actually looks good despite it kind of ways.” His reaction wasn’t anger that I’d brought it up, or frustration with it, or excusing. It was complete denial. Also, he tends to pretty much just cave when it comes to their home, which is almost completely devoid of male presence. There’s not even really a significant man cave, although they have a three bedroom home that, until very recently, was only occupied by the two of them. And he’s definitely a pedestaler. He’s got her very, very high up on one.
They just had a baby (hence the house no longer just being the two of them), and that’s making the issues a lot worse. She doesn’t talk about it, but she’s very clearly going through the, “Now I want to stay home and be a mommy” phase. But she really can’t. They’ve started accumulating the kinds of things that end up owning you. A nice house, nice furniture, nice middle class cars. All stuff that they can comfortably afford on their current income – they’ve been smart about that. But stuff that they certainly couldn’t afford on just Clark’s income.
So she wants to stay home, very clearly to those who know her, but she can’t. He’s already fighting a huge uphill alpha battle because of the income discrepancy. And there are the other beta behaviors on top of it. The result is a phenomenon I’m starting to recognize as “Frustrated Woman Syndrome,” and now that I know about Game and can recognize it, I see that it’s a huge problem in the modern western world. She subconsciously wants a much more alpha partner than she’s getting. On top of that, she’s followed the feminist play book for doing everything “right” to make herself happy. Only it’s not working. She’s not happy. She’s frustrated in her relationship, frustrated that she can’t play mommy, completely unhappy and worst of all she doesn’t even really understand why.
This has effects outside of their marriage, which is common with FWS. The main effect is that she’s transformed from a nice, well behaved, fun person into kind of a bitch. The effect is most pronounced around certain kinds of people: men who are more alpha than her husband; women who are partnered with such men; women who seem to be higher status than her (measured by shiny things). She obviously still cares greatly about her husband, and I’m not even convinced that she’s consciously aware of how unhappy she is. I’m certain that if you described her current behavior to her past self, her past self would be appalled. But if something doesn’t change, this is likely to end badly.
The solution is fairly clear: introduce Clark to Game. The difficulty is how to do so in such a way that he’ll be open to it. Unlike my brother Wilson, I’m fairly certain that he’d respond well to it if it were communicated in the right way. Unfortunately, the Game community as it exists on the internet is totally not the right way to broach it to him. He’d be appalled by Roissy. I’d buy him a copy of Athol’s book, but I think it would be too risqué for him. Even broaching the topic is a little tricky, because the standard evo-psych approach to Game wouldn’t carry much weight with a Creationist. Also, I’m pretty certain that framing it in terms of sex (the main motivator of most of the Game community) isn’t the right approach here. It would be better to frame it in terms of making her happier in the marriage.
So today the question is for my readers. How do you introduce a person like this to Game before it’s too late?
