A comment from Softek gets us started today:
My friend was telling me the other night how seeing multiple women “isn’t worth it.”
I’ve heard that more than once from more than one of my friends.
And how “living with the guilt and shame” and “hating themselves” was destroying their lives….
Very hard schema to break out of when it’s been imprinted on you. My own father self-proclaims to be “in favor of the damsels in distress,” including his recent, unquestionable defense of my friend’s mom, who divorced his dad after 35 years of marriage.
My dad didn’t even question her motives for a second and after she spent the evening hanging out with my mom and him, and told them the supposed “real” reasons she got a divorce, my dad automatically cut contact with the guy and again proclaimed his belief that men should protect all “damsels in distress.”
He’s even taken shots at me when my girlfriend’s been over, clearly siding with her and telling her things like “Keep him in line” and “Straighten him out” and calling me an idiot and scolding me if I don’t pull her chair out for her or put her coat on for her when she stands up.
No doubt, my self sabotaging of a clear opening for a hookup with an HB8 23 year old has been influenced by all of this. I didn’t realize how Beta I was until I actually got into a relationship.
I didn’t even know I HAD these programs because I was incel before, and had a couple one night stands that never developed into anything more. I also didn’t even know my DAD had these programs until he started doing shit like actually scolding me in front of my girlfriend and instructing her to “train me” and things like that.
To be honest I was kind of in shock that my own father would think like that. It felt like he was turning on me and it pissed me off. Even in a small way, to let his Blue Pill conditioning get in the way of his relationship with his own son — that really got to me, and not in a good way. I felt like my dad is supposed to be on my side, and to see him treating her better than he treats me and having conversations with her and helping her work out her finances and giving her career advice and all that while he won’t even give me the time of day….
….simply, it’s eye-opening. It’s tough to truly go Red Pill when everyone around you, including your own father/family members/friends are Blue Pill, and especially when they’re an active, regular part of your life, not just a figment of your imagination.
But there is no other way.
Alpha is a mindset, not a demographic. Softek’s father’s reflexive responses are endemic of men who are Alpha White Knights. Their reactions are behaviorally Alpha, but their reasoning is founded in their investments in Blue Pill conditioning. The usual schema revolve around an attempt to display higher value by identifying with and qualifying for women whom they presuppose have default authority and correctness above men in general.
This then manifests as an exaggerated AMOGing of any guy who would not affirm his investments in that Blue Pill ego-investment. So you get a guy who blusters like Softek’s Dad at Red Pill awareness – it’s both an opportunity to prove value as a White Knight and a resistance against any truths that would challenge his Blue Pill ego.
In my own life I’ve known several men who anyone in the ‘sphere would objectively call Alpha. Their default is to action, dominance, authority and control of whatever life puts in front of them. They handle their shit, they own their business ventures, they have all the Dark Triad traits you might expect from a guy like this – but put them in a social setting with a girl and they go as Beta as any Blue Pill guy you’ll ever know. Their Blue Pill conditioning predisposes them to compartmentalize this aspect of their personality to effectively put their dominant personality to the use of the Feminine Imperative.
Dangerous White Knights
Maybe I’m the only guy who watched both seasons of Daredevil on Netflix, but if you watch the first season where they go into the origin and character of Wilson Fisk (Kingpin) this is exactly the type of guy I’m talking about. Wildly Alpha, wildly unstable, but still in control of his empire. Put a woman in his life and he transitions all of that Alpha energy to essentially worshiping that woman. In fact, this prioritizing of women above his own interests is the motivation for his empire building. These are the Alpha White Knights who channel that Alpha energy to making his Blue Pill idealisms a reality for any woman who fits his ideal.
And when that Blue Pill ideal reveals itself to be a fantasy – or God forbid, a Red Pill aware guy should take this fantasy away from him intentionally or not – you will see him self destruct, and likely take either that woman, that Red Pill guy, or both along with him.
That’s one type of Blue Pill Alpha. Another is the guy who is Alpha in one context, but Beta in another. These are the guys I describe when I talk about my military friends who’ve faced live ammo being fired at them by people intent on killing them who hold up like nails and get their job done while commanding other men. Put them in a domestic situation or a position where they have to fall back on their Blue Pill conditioning in dealing with women and they’ll defer automatically to the Frame of their wives without a thought. When their wives up and leave them, these are some of the first men to swallow a bullet by their own hand.
Again, this is an Alpha who’s never been awakened to his Blue Pill conditioning. Say even one marginally critical word about women in general and they’re the first in line to kick your ass. But they’re also the most likely to self destruct when their Blue Pill idealism is challenged or crushed.
A lot gets made about the status of ‘Paper Alphas’, but I’m beginning to think term is a bit in error. I’m dropping this here today because I think there’s a misunderstanding about how Alpha energy is channeled with respect to a guy being Red Pill aware, and a guy who is still plugged into the feminine-primary Matrix and at the mercy of how women (and other men) will exploit his Blue Pill ego-investments. In the manosphere we tend to conflate Alpha with Red Pill, but as I always say, Alpha is a mindset and not representative of whether that man is in fact ‘woke’ to his conditions and manipulations.
When I watched how the Marvel writers handled the character of Wilson Fisk I got chills because I have personally counseled Blue Pill, but predominantly Alpha, guys who’ve stabbed the new boyfriends of their ex-girlfriends because he was perceived as the catalyst to the destruction of his Blue Pill ideal – union with his ONEitis girlfriend.
I’m emphasizing this because I think it’s important for Red Pill aware men to understand the dangers of being perceived as the antithesis of these men’s ego-investments in Blue Pill idealism. This may take the form of him just despising you for revealing uncomfortable truths to him with your own presence and lifestyle, or it may be him pinning his failures to consolidate his Blue Pill ideals to you and wanting to eliminate both you and the truth you represent.
I’m sorry if this is a bit sobering, but it needs to be said. As most readers know, I consider Alpha and Beta abstract terms; they are placeholders for concepts, thus, it is entirely possible for a largely Alpha man to be thoroughly invested in his Blue Pill conditioning. Likewise, it is also possible for more Beta men to be some of the most Red Pill aware men you’re likely to meet. It’s when a Beta man is ego-invested in the Blue Pill that he’s most to be pitied, while a Red Pill aware Alpha is likely to be the most celebrated. But that’s not to say the Red Pill and Alpha, or the Blue Pill and Beta are mutually exclusive concepts.
Is Provisioning Inherently a Characteristic of a Beta Mindset?
In this week’s post the proposition came up that any provisioning was inherently a Beta trait. I’ve read this before and not just on my blog, but also coming from both the MGTOW and the PUA sides of the fence. The idea is that any form of monogamy and/or provisioning for an LTR girlfriend (and I would count a live-in arrangement as provisioning), a wife and any kids (prospectively) is itself evidence of a Beta mindset.
I think the problem with this presumption rests in defining what the act of provisioning means both an Alpha and a Beta mindset. For both, this depends on their approach to their primary sexual strategies and reconciling it with the eventual necessity of his own parental investment in raising children, and/or maintaining relational Frame (or not) within a monogamy that at least promotes the wellbeing of any children.
As a reference here, I’m going to link Myth of the Good Guy to give a bit of perspective in this.
While it’s true that lower SMV men generally, necessarily, opt for a sexual strategy of primary investment in one mate (via provisioning) and higher SMV men can afford a sexual strategy of lower investment while seeking more sexual opportunities, those strategies are not necessarily reflective of each man’s mindset. As I mentioned in the beginning here, it is entirely possible for a subjectively Alpha man to subscribe to a Blue Pill conditioned mindset and vice versa for Beta men becoming Red Pill aware.
So yes, provisioning can be Beta if that provisioning (and what it took to achieve it) is the result of an effort to secure the sustained sexual interests of a single woman, as motivated by his perceived necessity to invest himself as I mentioned above for a low SMV man. However, if you have a high SMV guy who’s provisioning capacity is the byproduct of his Alpha mindset (or nature if you prefer) and not the result of his sexual strategy to build it to invest in any single woman, is that guy’s provisioning inherently a Beta characteristic?
We’ve had an interesting discussion about this in the last comment thread, and In the interests of full disclosure here, I’m still on the fence about this concept. I’ll have a forthcoming post about mindset soon.
Provisioning is certainly a value added aspect to a guy who a woman sees as an Alpha sex prospect already, and not a necessary a prerequisite for fucking him, but it’s not a disadvantage (being Beta) if that Alpha guy also has means, affluence, status, looks, etc. That said, and I’ve related this before, some of the most memorable sex experiences I’ve ever had were when I was an unemployed semi-pro musician in the late 80s-early 90s with almost zero means, but was somehow able to bang over 40 women then.
Provisioning is not a prerequisite for any man with Game, but is it inherently Beta? Possibly, when a guy has the Blue Pill mindset that makes him believe in the Relational Equity fallacy and he subscribes to the Blue Pill conditioned idea that he’s inherently lower SMV than ANY woman (like Softek’s Dad), thus he must improve his odds of successfully breeding by being a “good provider”. And as I, and anyone in the manosphere, will relate this old books providerhood is fast becoming an obsolete sexual strategy for Beta men.
This is, I think, the hesitation that most guys wanting to avoid the stink of ‘Beta Provider’ will argue for. But is a nominally Alpha guy, who has excess means and resources being “Beta” by providing for his wife & family? If that man’s dominant personality is ‘Alpha’ does this predispose women (or his wife) to rationalize his provisioning as an Alpha trait, or is it just an endearing (positive), comforting Beta trait / behavior that solidifies her attraction (if not arousal) to him?
I don’t think that the act of provisioning itself is inherently Beta or Alpha, rather it’s the mindset and status of that guy that makes it so. What do we call a an Alpha with ample means who refuses to adequately provide for his wife and/or kids? What do we call a Beta who’s based his life and marriage on his capacity to provide once he’s lost his job? Why do women statistically look down on men who don’t provide in equal or greater measure to their own contributions? Despite all the equalist boilerplate beliefs to the contrary, why do women feel little or no attraction to a non-provisioning house-husband? If provisioning were a net Beta trait why is its absence a source of decreased attraction for men?
I should also add that this perception of whether a man is Alpha or Beta in his provisioning is subjective to whatever phase of maturity a woman find herself in, and is modified by her own necessitousness – which, as has been argued in the ‘sphere ad infinitum, has become increasingly less dependent on men. It’s no coincidence that back in the early 90s for me, the women I was banging were largely girls in their SMV peak years (21-24) or they we’re the occasional cougars of the time who were already divorced and still reasonably attractive enough to pass the boner test for me. My capacity to provision for either of these demographic of women made little difference to my sex appeal, but for different reasons.
Roissy even covers this aspect of women’s sexual prioritization in The Difficulty of Gaming Women by Age Bracket:
31 to 34 year olds
In some ways, women in the 31-34 age range are the toughest broads to game. (By “toughest”, it is meant “most time consuming”.) It’s counterintuitive, yes, but there are factors at work besides her declining beauty which mitigate against the easy, quick lay. For one, it is obviously harder to meet single 31-34 year old women than it is to meet single younger women. Marriage is still a pussy-limiting force to contend with for the inveterate womanizer, but Chateau apprentices are hard at work battling the scourge of mating market disturbances caused by the grinding and churning of the marriage machine.
But the bigger reason 31-34 year olds are harder to game than any other age group of women has to do with the wicked nexus of entitlement and self-preservation that occurs at this age in women. When you combine a disproportionate sense of entitlement fueled by years of feminism, steady paychecks and promotions, and cheerleading gay boyfriends with suspicions of every man’s motives and a terrible anxiety of being used for a sexual fling sans marriage proposal, you get a venom-spitting malevolent demoness on guard against anything she might perceive as less than total subjugation to her craving for incessant flattery and princess pedestaling.
Note that Chateau guests aren’t necessarily complaining. A harder-to-game 33 year old is kind of like getting bumped down from a Honda Civic rental but driving off the lot with the consolation prize of a Ferrari.
Listen to any man who is good with women and they will tell you the same thing:
“I have an easier time bedding and dating 23 year olds than I do 33 year olds.”
While I do concur with the assessment about women’s exaggerated sense of entitlement, I would also argue that this difficulty is a result of women’s prioritizing long-term security (emotional and provisional) as part of their sexual strategy reprioritizations that come in the wake of their Epiphany Phase. Ergo, this would explain the ease in gaming women pre and post Epiphany Phase. Provisioning and long term security are low sexual priorities for these demographics of women.
But does that make a capacity for provisioning inherently a Beta trait? I think it’s easy to misconstrue that capacity as Beta, because provisioning is a high-value attribute that is expected from Beta men according to their own sexual strategy. Provisioning is associated with Betas because it is integral to their sexual strategy, and also part of the Blue Pill plan for which women are hoping to fulfill at a point in their maturity when they are subjectively at their most necessitous.
What do you think?
